


Actaeon

by Tyger_Tyger



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Blood and Gore, Creepy Fluff, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Episode: s02e09 Shiizakana, Rimming, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5039284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyger_Tyger/pseuds/Tyger_Tyger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set at the end of Shiizakana when Hannibal returns home to find Will with the body of Randall Tier, and imagines what happened the rest of that night. </p>
<p>This can be read as stand alone or as a precursor to Battistero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Actaeon

**Author's Note:**

> Second dalliance into the lovely Hannibal fandom. Hope you like it. 
> 
> Feedback received with love (and chewed nails)

Actaeon

 

Randall Tier’s blood was still caked beneath Will’s fingernails. Hannibal stared at Will’s hands, not at the body. Will’s hands spoke to him, said he had been the one who had killed and brought the monster home, broken and pitiful and lain out on the dining table. Like a wolf returning to the pack with a kill.

“I’d say this makes us even.”

Hannibal wasn’t listening to the words, only acknowledging them on an intellectual level. He was focussing most of his attention on attempting to keep his heart rate from rising. 

“I sent someone to kill you. You sent someone to kill me.”

The cut of Will’s coat was exquisite. His face was calm but reluctant victory. He blazed.

“Even Stevens.”

Hannibal forced his mind back into focus. 

“And neither of us successful, it would seem.” Hannibal calmly slipped his coat from his shoulders and folded it neatly on the sideboard, placing his gloves on top. Will remained standing at the end of the table, his only movement to turn his head slightly, as though unhappy about Hannibal’s apparent disdain. 

“That depends on what you were hoping to achieve.”

“And what were you hoping to achieve, Will? When you sent that boy after me.” Hannibal walked towards the table, placed his hands on the back of a chair and purposefully did not look at the body. 

“To live vicariously through another’s hands.”

“It was a poor substitute, Will.” Hannibal said, tone almost teasing. “Not worthy of your reckoning.” 

“Jack told me he almost had you. Was it galling, Dr Lector? To play the victim and desperately cry for help? I think he would have succeeded if they hadn’t found you in time.”

“Do you wish that he had succeeded?” 

“Do you wish that your boy had succeeded?” Will countered, annoyed at the bitterness in his own voice.

“I did not expect him to.” Hannibal walked around behind Will, who only acknowledged the movement with a quick glance before returning his set-jaw gaze to the body in front of him. 

“So why send him.” Will said, though not as a question. “Bastard hurt my dog.”

“Not seriously, I hope.” Hannibal replied as he rounded the other side of the table, looking at the body as though it were a curiosity on display. Will glared at him, at the absurdity of that statement given the circumstances. 

“You would have found him soon enough.” Hannibal continued. "But how many other people would he have torn apart in the meantime? Sending him to you has saved them.”

“So now you’re a humanitarian? Don’t expect me to believe you were motivated by the desire to preserve life.”

“Randal Tier was a boy playing at being a beast. He did not embrace his nature, he tried to hide behind it.” Hannibal stopped and looked into the dead face in front of him, then glanced up to meet Will’s gaze. “Did you kill him with your hands?”

Will’s face faltered slightly as he closed his eyes for a moment. He subconsciously flexed his stiff right hand.

“It was. Intimate.”

“It deserves intimacy. He deserved your intimacy, to show him how he was mistaken.”

“And how was he mistaken?”

“He thought he could find his true self by building it on the outside, cladding himself with it. He did not yet realise that it can only come from inside. He made an exoskeleton from it, when he should have nurtured it within.”

“No, he wanted to rip and rend flesh, to tear a body to pieces.” Will said, frowning and shaking his head. “He wanted his body to match the way he was inside. He had to become it physically, he couldn’t do what he wanted to do in a human body.” 

“You have seen enough brutality to know that isn’t true, Will.” Hannibal began to walk back towards him. “He did not have the confidence to simply be that beast. He was still hiding from it, even as he thought he had liberated himself.” Hannibal stopped beside him, standing too close so that when he spoke his voice ghosted across Will’s neck. “But you liberated him, Will.”

“I didn’t liberate him.” Will scoffed bitterly. “I killed him.”

“And in so doing you have saved the lives he would have taken. Is that not what you desire above everything? To save lives?” 

“Preferably without taking them myself.” Will said, lowering his head but refusing to move away from Hannibal’s deliberate proximity. 

Hannibal smiled faintly, reached across Will’s body to gently lift his right hand. 

“Nothing’s broken.” Will said absently and without wincing as Hannibal checked the movement in his wrist.

“Still, it should be examined and cleaned at the least.” Hannibal released Will's arm and began to undo the fastenings on his coat, stepping behind him to pull it off his shoulders without jarring his hand. Will turned to face him with the movement, and Hannibal suddenly became very still when he saw Will’s front. 

Blood was spattered over his shirt, spilled down from his own split lip, arcing up from the spray of the boy’s broken face, and an area saturated from where he had clasped his smallest dog to his chest. Will slowly met his eyes, looking up through his eyelashes.

“Come into the kitchen, Will.” Hannibal said, guiding him with a hand at the small of his back. 

————-

Will was drifting in and out of the moment. Trying not to fade too far away, trying to maintain the act, but at the same time retreating within his own mind to escape from this reality and from what he knew he had to do in it. His knuckles stung from the water, from the gauze gently tending to the cuts and swollen joints. And it was the tenderness he wanted to retreat from suddenly, not the horror or the inevitability of the train wreck this would end in, but the hideous kindness Hannibal showed him, the courtesy with which he conducted abhorrent acts of cruelty. Miriam Lass had said he was polite and kind, even as he took her arm. How can you stop the fox when the chickens think he’s one of their own?

“Stay with me.” Hannibal said. Stay with him; don’t retreat; don’t chase the glinting rail track as it vibrates with oblivion. 

“Where else would I go?”

Stay here. Hand clasped by another which had wrought terror hewn from flesh. 

Stay here. Where that monstrous feeling Will had tried to hold down was surfacing, spilling like something glacial and unstoppable. Rising from a place he’d kept it quietly seething since he was a boy. Pulling him back to a place beyond reason where there was only the desire to destroy someone who had negated their right to life through their own brutality. 

“I’ve never felt as alive as I did when I was killing him.”

Alive and righteous and good. Like the first gulping breath of air after being too deep underwater. Like the balm of warmth after snow. 

“Then you owe Randall Tier a debt.” Hannibal said quietly, after a pause in which he absorbed Will’s words like ink on blotting paper. “How will you repay him?”

“I will honour him.” Will replied, expression breaking with his voice over the consonants. 

“Good. Would you like me to help you?”

“Yes.” Will said, head dropped and eyes closed.

——————

Of course there was a whetstone in the basement. Will focused his attention on that, the only familiar thing down there which he didn’t already associate with the autopsy lab or a butcher's shop. Hannibal had stopped him three times during the dismemberment process to clean and re-sharpen the knife. The third time Will felt his muscles ache in a deep twisting way he hadn’t felt in years, not since working on the fishing boats when he was a kid. A heavy kind of exhaustion which sleep wouldn’t even touch, if sleep would come. 

Hannibal had suspended the body above a long sloping basin, opened up the flesh of the throat to allow the thick blood to leak out, sluggish and tacky. Randal Tier’s face was shimmering gore, mouth gaping beneath the tubular wings of sliced neck. Once the body was in manageable pieces, Hannibal had vacuum-wrapped them and packed them into two large duffel bags, placing them in the over-sized fridge. 

“Why are you putting them in there?” Will asked, leaning heavily against the metal table, bloodied hands limp at his sides. 

“Because you will take it with you in the morning. The final part of your design you will complete at home, without my interference.”

“But,” Will began, mentally running through all the reasons why that was a bad idea. “he’ll be reported missing and -”

“He lived alone and had minimal contact with family.” Hannibal said, moving towards Will. “He will not arrive for work on Monday, and the Museum may report him missing the following day. That gives you until at least Wednesday before Jack hears about it, longer maybe depending on the efficiency of his analysts.”

“But I -” Will said, rubbing his forehead with his hand without realising he was smearing more blood there. 

“You have four days to prepare. How will you use them?” Hannibal reached out and gently tugged Will’s wrist away from his face. Will hadn’t realise until then that Hannibal had also been wearing gloves. 

“You planned all of this, didn’t you?” he said, eyes closed and frowning against the desolation he heard in his own voice. 

“I set in motion something outside of my own control. But I have always had great faith in you Will. You have yet to disappoint.” 

Will huffed a laugh which sounded more like a sob. 

“And what if I took those bags straight to Quantico, huh? Would that ‘disappoint’ you?” he replied bitterly.

“Will,” Hannibal said gently, cupping his jaw in his hand and forcing eye contact. “You’re not going to do that.”

“No.” he whispered after a pause, eyes closed and brows raised in uncomfortable acceptance. 

“Come.” Hannibal said, running his hand from Will’s shoulder to the small of his back. “You need to clean up before you fall asleep on your feet. You’ve had quite an evening.”

——————

Will stood under the shower head with the water too hot and too high. He felt the sting of the heat, resisted his body’s instinct to back away from it. He’d never butchered anything much bigger than a rabbit before. What shocked him was how easy it had been to see it that way, as though he had dismembered a deer and not a person. But that thought led him back to the stag, and right on cue he heard the clap of hooves on the marble floor. He didn’t turn to see it through the steam. 

Hannibal had left pyjamas for him on the bed in the guest room. The room was familiar, although Will was sure he’d never seen it before. He ignored the fact that he already knew which drawer the socks were in. 

He sat on the side of the bed with no knowledge of time passing, until there was a knock at the door and he realised how stiff his back was when he looked up. Hannibal entered slowly with a steaming mug in one hand. He paused momentarily when he saw Will, and then approached and placed the mug on the bedside table.

“I’ve made you some tea, Will. It will help you sleep.” Will began to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but somehow it came out distorted and before he could stop himself he was gasping heavy sobs, his breath getting lost in the noise and the pressure he felt in his chest. 

Hannibal knelt in front of him, pulled his knees apart to slide in closer with one hand between his shoulder blades and the other on his stomach, making quiet lulling noises as though Will were a frightened child.

“Hush, Will, hush. Focus on my hands, you can feel where my hands are? Focus your breathing there, push my hands away with the in-breath and pull them closer as you breathe out. That's it, good.”

His breathing started to return to normal after a minute or so, and his whole body sank forward with exhaustion. Hannibal held him close, rested Will’s head on his shoulder and cupped the back of his head. Will realised he was speaking to him softly in a language he didn’t understand, although he recognised a couple of words. He felt Hannibal’s fingers combing through the damp curls at the back of his neck, but he didn't have the strength to lift his arms to complete the embrace, and didn’t understand why he wanted to. Hannibal pulled away, reached for the tea and held it to Will’s mouth, didn’t let go of the mug even when Will took hold of it.

“Ginger. It can settle an unquiet mind and body. Drink it all, please.”

It tasted metallic, but Will realised that was the residual smell and taste of blood, and he closed his eyes to the few tears which slid down his cheek. 

———————

It was still dark when he woke, cold sweat making the pyjama top stick to his skin. He pulled it off over his head and stumbled to the bathroom, his limbs dead weights. He splashed cold water over his face and through his hair, then dipped his head under the running water until he started to loose feeling in his scalp. He heard the bedroom door open, heard Hannibal call his name. Will rubbed his face hard with both hands and stood up as Hannibal entered the bathroom.

“Will. I heard the pipes. Are you -”

“Don’t ask me if I’m alright, Hannibal. You know I’m not.” Will buried his face in the thick towel and rubbed at his hair. 

“Did you not sleep?” 

“I slept. Then I didn’t.” He dumped the balled-up towel in the basin, mainly because he knew the look it would provoke in Hannibal. He turned around, lent back with both hands against the sink. “Sorry I woke you. You should go back to bed.”

Hannibal was looking at the sharp angles of Will’s collar bone. He stopped his eyes from wondering lower, although his peripheral vision supplied the image of the loose sleep pants sitting low against Will's hips. Will wondered how long he’d been letting his mind drift to his version of Hannibal’s perspective. Probably longer than he cared to admit.

“Would you like to take something to help you sleep?”

“No. No Hannibal, just go back to bed. I should probably go anyway.”

“It’s not morning and you are still exhausted. You should rest, even if you will not sleep.”

“I just need some coffee.” Will said, scooping up the towel and the discarded top and tossing them into the laundry bin behind Hannibal. Hannibal said his name softly, gently touched his fingers to Will’s arm.

Will met his eyes, frowning. Hannibal looked exhausted himself. Will had never seen him look so disheveled, soft and worn around the edges like a well-loved book. There was an openness to his eyes which was usually guarded. 

“Wait until the morning.”

“Ok.” Will said, because he didn’t know how else to respond to the expression on Hannibal’s face. 

——————-

Will lay in bed staring at the ceiling. When he closed his eyes he saw teeth, torn flesh and bones. Randal Tier hid behind his handmade cladding of bone, projected himself out through it. Hannibal said he should have remained hidden behind his own skin, learnt how to be a beast with his own hands and teeth instead of just masquerading as one. He should have been a cave bear wearing Randal Tier. Will saw him then, sabred teeth sprouting from his canines, claws emerging from his fingers, his body warped to cover bones more ancient. 

Will sat up abruptly, didn’t want those images invading his head uninvited anymore, rubbed his face with his hands. He wanted cold air against his skin. He stood and quietly made his way to the hallway, intending to go out into the garden, but he saw a door ajar and a light coming from within the room at the end of the corridor. 

Hannibal sat at the desk in his study, the light from the lamp reflecting gold on the sheet of paper before him. He looked up abruptly, surprised to not have heard Will until he had already made a step inside the room. His pencil hovered half an inch from the page.

“Little late for sketching, isn’t it?” Will said with a tired half grin. He pulled the dressing gown closer to cover his bare chest. 

Hannibal looked down at the drawing. For once, maybe because it was the middle of the night, or maybe because Will was still so wired he’d have been able to interpret the intentions of a motionless snake right now, Hannibal’s expression was obvious to him. He was calculating whether he could hide the drawing subtly before Will made it close enough to get a good look. 

Will frowned and moved forward quickly, looked down and saw in the gentlest of shading and cross hatch a study of his own collar bone and shoulder, the lower half of his neck pulled back and prone in submission. Where his shoulder blade should have smoothly angled down, there was instead a thick covering of fur with black feathers sprouting through it. 

“Are you - is that me?”

“Do you wish it to be?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

“You’ve watched me sketch before. Have you often wondered if I were drawing you?”

“Don’t try to be evasive. Why did you draw me with fur?”

Hannibal paused and carefully placed his pencil down on the table. 

“I was thinking about the differences between you and Randall Tier. About how you, had you his particular condition, would have carried your inner nature on the atomic level. A part of yourself completely.”

“You drew me becoming the stag.”

Hannibal was silent, looking at the paper. 

“Would you like to talk about the inherent symbolism in that?” Will asked.

“A symbol is only as meaningful as it’s meaning to the person observing it. What do you believe your stag symbolised for you?”

“A base nature. Instinctive reactions which aren’t subject to the social construct of morality.” Will replied after a pause, his voice flatter than he had intended it to be. 

“You were magnificent earlier.” Hannibal said.

“Do you wish you’d seen me kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you should have stuck around a bit longer after you showed him to my house.”

Hannibal gave him a measured look at that, but didn’t respond for a moment.

“What makes you think I - ”

“Don’t, Hannibal. Just don’t.” Will said, leaning his side against the heavy desk and crossing his arms. “No more bullshit.”

Hannibal’s expression became subtly tighter, and Will realised he’d pissed him off. 

“Bullshit?” he said. “Like you continuing the charade of the martyr who’s pursuit of evil can atone for his own desire for bloodshed?”

“Wow. I’ve never seen you get petty before.” Will said, pushing himself away from the desk with his hip.

Hannibal’s hand was suddenly gripped around Will’s wrist, slamming it down onto the table and holding it there with brute force. Will frowned, tugged his arm to snatch his hand away, but found himself unable to move from beneath Hannibal’s grip. Will met his eyes, and saw for the first time his face void of all pretences, no more amenable patience or well-mannered charm. Blank, horrifically. Unreadable and unknowable. With all the indifference of a storm at sea, a force of nature doing what it does for no other reason than it will. 

Will felt a chill prickle it’s way up his spine, and actually huffed half a laugh at the cliche of it, but his breath got stuck in his throat.

“Hannibal -” he said, placating, calmly. Hannibal stood up and circled in front of him in one fluid motion, and Will’s other hand was snatched up and pressed hard against the desk. Hannibal forced his arms to bend until he was prone awkwardly back, weight painfully spread between his elbows and the base of his spine, where the sharp edge of the table bit into his back. Hannibal leant over him, his face in shadow, his body held inches from Will’s, keeping him pinned and immobile with nothing more than his hands around Will's wrists. 

Will felt his breath stuttering, his heart thumping in his ears as he stared up into Hannibal’s eyes, neck straining from the angle. It was the first time in as long as he could remember that he had felt truly frightened of someone outside of his own head. He'd feared for his life when it was threatened, feared for the people he cared about when they had been in danger, but his terror was only ever for the things his own mind did to him, the dark promise of what he might do if he gave in to it. But there in Hannibal’s eyes, that engaged detachment, the indifference and intelligent disregard. It was like looking at another person's scars and realising they’d known the same pain as you in a way no one else could ever understand. Some deep and shared intimacy, to be known and seen with such clarity and be accepted despite it. It was intoxicating.

Will tried to move, jaw tense and and teeth gritted, but Hannibal just leaned more of his weight against him and left him breathless. Will pushed back on the table, raised himself higher on his toes and pressed his body into Hannibal’s, eyes wide and throat tight. Hannibal’s gaze faltered at the movement, and he glanced down curious as his own dressing gown slid open over Will’s chest. 

The room was oppressively silent suddenly, only the tense click of Will’s throat as he swallowed, before he rolled his pelvis back against the table and pulled his legs up, holding Hannibal’s hips between his thighs and pulling him closer, his eyes searching Hannibal’s. 

Hannibal looked up suddenly, met Will’s wary stare blankly for a few long moments before softening with a slight tilt of his head, his grip loosening. Will tugged him closer still until he could feel Hannibal’s hardening cock against his own.

“Do you see me, Hannibal?” Will asked quietly, voice tense. “What do you see?”

“A most extraordinary metamorphosis.” he replied, whispered and heavy with his accent. “Were you Actaeon your dogs would not devour you, but run beside you. With your antlers you would impale the sun.”

Will leant forward, pressed his lips to Hannibal’s mouth, felt the inhaled breath as he began to kiss him, felt the quiet exhale as Hannibal returned it. He released one of Will’s wrists, slipped his hand up his back to grip behind his neck, fingers tightening in his hair. Will grabbed the collar of Hannibal’s top, pulled him closer as he nipped Hannibal’s lower lip between his teeth and Hannibal practically growled, twisting away as he pressed his finger to the tiny bite inside his mouth and saw the pinked saliva. 

Will stared back at him, challenging and submitting all at once, a heady combination of want and strength and vulnerability. Hannibal reached forward, grabbed Will harshly by the back of his neck with his thumb lodged beneath his jaw, pulled him forward to his feet and walked one quick step ahead of him towards the hallway. Will stumbled behind him, one hand gripped around Hannibal’s wrist as the other held up the dressing gown to avoid tripping over it. Through Hannibal’s bedroom door, and Will barely had time to take in the grey and blue shine of the fabrics, the dark wood veneers, the oddly familiar samurai armour, before Hannibal pulled off the dressing gown and threw him face down on the bed. He twisted and rolled over ready to sit up, but Hannibal was on him, tugging off his own jumper and pinning him down by his shoulders, pressing the length of his body hard against him and meeting his eyes seemingly by default, with a cold distance as he gripped his fingers harshly behind the dip of Will’s collar bone. Will twisted away from the pain, only for Hannibal to wrench his arm above his head and pin it down at an unnatural angle.

“Stop.” The word left his mouth before he even realised he’d thought it. 

“Stop.” Will repeated, quieter as Hannibal’s head did that tilt again, regarding him like a vague curiosity. Hannibal sat up gracefully, hands resting on his thighs where he perched still straddling Will’s hips. “You don’t -” Will began, but his voice left him. He sighed his frustration, screwed his eyes shut and rubbed them with the back of his hand. It was easier in the darkness of his own mind.

“You don’t want this to hurt me. You don’t hurt people because you want them to suffer. It’s a correlate - what you need to achieve is only achievable through their suffering, but their suffering is meaningless to you - the only meaning it has is to them, and through it they become something greater at your hand, but it’s not the cause or reason.”

Will paused and looked up, saw Hannibal’s gaze had become hard and concentrated, like a torch in a lightless room. 

“You want me to see you, but you don’t know how to show me.” Will said, rising to rest on his elbows. “Just let me have you.”

After a long and silent pause, Hannibal shifted in one sinuous movement to lie upon him, carding his fingers through Will’s hair to cup the back of his head, pressed their lips together in a deep kiss, pulled at the waistbands of their sleep pants. Will tongued at the small cut he had made in the inside of Hannibal’s lip, sucked it between his front teeth to taste the shape of it, moaned quietly as Hannibal’s hand slipped beneath him to lightly dig his nails into his ass. Hannibal nuzzled his face into Will’s neck, slid his hand around and along the back of Will’s thigh, guiding his leg to bend and bring his knee towards his chest. He mouthed kisses at his ear, moving down his neck and chest, lapped wide and wet at his nipple as he moved his other hand to grip their cocks together between them, and Will was dizzy with it, eyes closed and head back, but aware of something important missing.

And he saw Hannibal as he had been with other lovers - controlled and soft with Alana, tongue between her thighs and her nails in his hair as he pressed into her, forming a convenient bond to blindfold her with. Exploratory in his youth, a fascination to see how the mind could be so controlled by what happened to the body, a need to discover how people could be bent and shaped to meet his curiosity. His own desires muted by other people’s inability to accept him, he learnt to find his pleasure in enabling the other’s, drawing it from them like a skilled musician does their instrument. And for his own needs, the seldom trips to the high class escorts, the kind that show you their clean SDI check and you pay the same rate regardless of the length of time they spend with you. The polite professionalism, the impersonal performance, the safety of only losing control in hands bound to secrecy and service. 

Will forced his breath to catch, pulled himself away from the bliss of Hannibal’s hand twisting the heads of their cocks together, forced the words to settle in the right order in his mind.

“Does Alana know she’s never made you come? That’s why you won’t let her suck you off, isn’t it? It’s easier to hide it with condoms.”

Hannibal froze, his back stiffening to straight as he raised his head from Will’s chest. He glanced up, face expressionless but lips wet and pinked, and Will could practically see his mind working through the possibilities of how Will could know that.

“You won’t show her because you can’t let her see you.” Will said, sitting up and bringing Hannibal with him. “Let me.” Will met his gaze for a few silent moments. He placed a hand to Hannibal’s neck, kissed against unmoving lips, pressed Hannibal down to lie on his back. Stiff and graceless, he lay with arms at his side and legs straight as Will moved over him, brushed his fingers down his side to raise the hairs to stand up in their follicles. He licked at the firm skin beneath Hannibal’s ribs, curved up to follow his sternum to his collar bone, sucked kisses into his neck, and Hannibal didn’t move beyond the slight increase in his breathing. 

“You don’t even have to try to hide anymore, do you? It’s more of an effort to let the mask slip.” Will whispered, pressing his knee between Hannibal’s thighs and pushing them apart. He moved his teeth over the length of Hannibal’s neck, nipping at his earlobe. “I’d tell you all the things I’ve wanted to do to you during our sessions if I thought it might crack through that pretence, but you’d probably just find it vulgar, huh?” Will slid his hand around Hannibal’s hip, made quiet gentle noises to soothe the tensing of Hannibal’s muscles as he pushed his legs further apart. “No, words won’t do it, I haven’t found the words which hold any power over you yet.”

Will moved down Hannibal’s body, held the backs of his thighs in each hand and pushed them up to raise his pelvis from the bed, licked a wide hot stripe between his cheeks all the way to the base of his cock, felt the gasp of air Hannibal sucked in and the taut moan which followed as Hannibal’s fingers dug into the bedsheets. 

“Close your eyes,” Will said, breath brushing over the wet line he’d made. “It’ll be easier with your eyes closed.”

Hannibal frowned, the unease intense across his face, but he closed his eyes and pressed the fingers and thumb of one hand against them, and Will took that to be as close to permission as he was going to get. He kissed gently along his thigh, tonguing through the scattering of hair there before pressing his mouth between Hannibal’s legs and sucking at the puckered skin. Will had only done this a couple of times before, and had never allowed anyone to do it to him. It was too intimate an act, would have made him too vulnerable to the other person, far too exposed to have experienced it as pleasurably as his former partners had seemed to find it. By Hannibal’s reaction he knew the same was true for him, that he had never had this before. 

Will slid further down the bed to lie on his front, circled the smooth skin around Hannibal’s hole with the point of his tongue before flicking over it as a small noise escaped Hannibal’s throat with his breath. Will pushed his tongue in just until the muscle gave slightly, then mouthed further up to suck at his balls. Hannibal arched off the bed slightly, pressed his heels down into the mattress to raise his hips higher as Will moved away again, made a small noise which didn’t seen particularly happy.

“Shh, it’s ok.” Will whispered gently, pressing his lips at the join of skin where his legs met his pelvis. “It’s good, just let it happen.” Will returned his tongue to Hannibal’s hole with a wide hard lick before pushing inside, and smiled as this time he moved to back away Hannibal’s hand grasped at his hair to keep his head there. Will pressed closer, sucked and pushed and fucked him with his tongue as he moved his hands up over Hannibal’s stomach and ribs, elbows pushing his legs higher and further apart until Hannibal was breathless and Will couldn’t thrust any deeper. Hannibal all but whimpered, hand covering the whole of his face, as Will took his tongue away and kissed up between his legs, licked the length of his shaft and circled one finger around his hole. He brought his other hand to gently pry Hannibal’s fingers away from his closed eyes, stroked his face and kissed a trail up his chest. Hannibal caught his lips with his own, kissed deep and needy sounds against his mouth as Will made soothing noises in return and slowly pushed his finger inside.

“It’s alright, you’re ok, I’ve got you.” he whispered against Hannibal’s sudden intake of breath. “Open your eyes, look at me.”

Hannibal closed his eyes tighter, turned his face away but rose his hips up towards Will as he slowly pushed inside. Will left him with his last grasp at privacy behind his eyelids and kissed his way down his chest, through the smooth hairs and out over his hipbone. He twisted his finger gently inside Hannibal, and Hannibal sucked in a breath at the sensation, concaving his stomach and arching his ribs. He looked beautiful, and Will wanted to say so but knew it wasn’t what Hannibal wanted to hear. Instead he took the head of Hannibal’s cock into his mouth and let his tongue and lips wrap around it with gentle pressure. Hannibal pushed his feet into the bed, in a tight voice mumbled words Will didn’t recognise, and Will sucked and bobbed his head up and down until Hannibal was gasping, head back against the pillow and saying his name. Will moved his finger back and forth over his prostate, worked his tongue around the head of his cock and Hannibal had his fingers through Will’s hair, small noises keened with each fast breath. Will resisted the gentle tug to pull his mouth away and instead took Hannibal in to the back of his throat and Hannibal came, palm to his open mouth as Will worked him though it, gasping words which weren’t English.

Will sat up slowly, kept both hands gently pressed to Hannibal’s leg and hip, watched him as he caught his breath and rubbed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Will knew he should wait for Hannibal to return to himself, give him time to rebuild his walls, catch back the pieces of himself he’d spent a lifetime carving to make the perfect mask. He wanted to, to give him the grace Hannibal would give him in the same circumstance - it was the polite thing to do. But he also knew that wasn’t the way to forge the links of the noose he was weaving. 

He moved slowly to lie on top of Hannibal, kissed under his chin and rested himself on his elbows either side of his face. He pressed their lips together, kissed gently at Hannibal’s mouth until his moved in return and he inhaled deeply, tasting himself on Will’s tongue. 

“You ok?” Will asked. Hannibal hummed a noise which could be negative or affirmative. Will brushed his fingers through Hannibal’s hair, moved to lie beside him and shifted so that his cock wasn’t pressing hard into Hannibal’s hip. 

“You. Haven’t.” Hannibal said after a pause, gesturing towards Will’s pelvis but with eyes still closed.

“Doesn’t matter.” Will replied, gently tugging Hannibal’s other hand away from his face. “Do you need anything?”

“Some water, please.” Hannibal replied, gesturing towards the door to the bathroom. Will got up and went to get some, sure that Hannibal had only asked for it to give himself a few moments alone to centre himself again. He ran the cold tap and splashed water on his face, leant his head against the high sideboard behind the sink and took a few deep breaths. His cock had already started to soften, and the cold did the rest until he felt like he could actually think straight again.

He returned to the bedroom with a glass of water to find Hannibal sitting on the edge of the bed facing the other way. He could see a fractured image of his face reflected in the black window, could see his eyes were open and looking straight ahead at the wall. Will put the glass down on the bedside table and got on the bed to kneel behind him. He fitted himself to sit with his chest against Hannibal’s back, his legs either side of him and gently ran his fingers up and down his arm. He kissed the skin beneath the hair at the nape of his neck, closed his eyes and let his mind drift in the quiet of the room. 

He was casting out a second time in the river when Hannibal finally moved, took Will’s hand in his and pressed their fingertips together. Will leant his head against Hannibal’s shoulder.

“Are you back with me?” he asked, whispered.

“Yes.” Hannibal replied, turning slightly to meet Will’s eyes and lopsided smile. “You look exhausted.”

“Am. Want to go again?” 

Hannibal huffed a laugh and brushed the curl away from Will’s brow. 

“I think perhaps not. Will you stay here?”

Will knew he shouldn’t. He had already let this go too far, far too far for it to be in any way a clean end when it came. 

“I sweat. I thrash around and talk in my sleep, you don’t want me to stay here.”

“I think I’m in a better position to know what I want, don’t you?” Hannibal replied, almost smiling.

“Fine. But you’d better fetch a towel for me to lie on, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Hannibal stood and took a drink of water, and guided Will to lie down.

Will felt his exhaustion like a weight around his neck and his eyes were already closed when his head hit the pillow. He fell asleep to the sound of Hannibal humming a quiet tune as he moved his fingers gently through Will’s hair.

———————-

Will woke with a start and sat upright, gasping as he looked around at unfamiliar surroundings. He shook his head, caught his breath as he ran his hands through his sweat-wet hair. Hannibal rolled over beside him and placed a cool hand against his back.

“Sorry.” Will said, voice cracking with sleep. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I was already awake.” Hannibal replied, sounding far more together than seemed entirely fair. He tugged Will to lie back on the bed and rose up on his side to rest on his elbow, his other hand on Will’s chest. “Would you like breakfast?”

“I don’t eat breakfast.” Will said curtly, angry suddenly at the domesticity of this, at the ease with which he could slip into it if he allowed himself. If he ignored the fact that there as a dismembered corpse in the basement, and the fact of who the person beside him was. 

“Now that is a lie, Will. I have seen you eat breakfast.” Light. Playful, as though this was all that should be between them.

“I don’t eat breakfast anymore.” he replied. Hannibal’s hand stilled where it had been gently moving over Will’s stomach.

“Ah. So here we are then. Am I safe to assume that your regret about last night is not for such a banal reason as unrecognised internalised homophobia?”

“There is nothing ‘banal’ about any of this.” Will said quietly, closing his eyes and rubbing a hand across his face. 

“Nor should there be. Still, complicated doesn’t have to mean difficult. It’s much easier to deal with one decision at a time. So would you like poached eggs on toast with hollandaise?”

“That’s too rich for this time of the morning. What is the time anyway?” Will sighed, trying not to admit to himself how much he wanted to slip into the honeyed version of the situation Hannibal was describing.

“It’s just before eight. Shall I leave the hollandaise then?”

“Yes. Please.” Will replied.

“Good. Now all you have to do is have a shower while I’m cooking.”

Hannibal got up and wrapped the discarded robe around himself. Will stood once he had gone, walked over to the window and pressed his forehead to the cold glass. Wondered at what point he’d started lying to himself as well as to Hannibal. 

*************


End file.
